The courage to say - no!
Media
Part of Panorama
- Title
- The courage to say - no!
- Language
- English
- Source
- Panorama XIX (5) May 1967
- Year
- 1967
- Rights
-
- Fulltext
- ■ Absence, of standards is the cause of all kinds of confusion. THE COURAGE Barbara Tuchman, Pulit zer Prize winner in 1963 for "Guns of August,” in an ad dress before a Chicago con ference of the Association of Higher Education, said what should have been said long ago. "Of all the ills that our poor criticized, analyzed, sociologized society is heir to, the focal one, it seems to me, from which so much of our uneasiness and confusion de rive, is the absence of stand ards. We are too unsure of ourselves to assert them, to stick by them, if necessary in the case of persons who oc cupy positions of authority, to impose them. We seem to be afflicted by a wide spread and eroding reluc tance to take any stand on any values, moral, behavioral, or esthetic. Everyone is afraid to call anything wrong, or vulgar, or fraudulent, or just bad taste or bad man ners. "In the turmoils at Berke ley, at least as regards the TO SAY - NOI filthy speech demonstrations, there was a missed opportu nity ... for a hearty, empha tic and unmistakable *No!’ backed up by sanctions. Why? Because the act, even if intended as a demonstra tion of principle, was in this case, like any indecent expo sure, simply offensive . . . and must be curtailed. ". . . if the educated man is not willing to express standards, if he cannot show that he has them and applies them, what then is education for . . . If at maturity he is not willing to express judg ment on matters of policy or taste or morals, if at 50 he does not believe that hd. has acquired more wisdom and informed experience than is possessed by the student at 20, then he is saying in effect that education has been a failure.” The tragedy is that there are not enough persons ready to take a strong stand when canons of good taste are vio lated. — From C.U. Business, April, 1967. 2 Panorama
- pages
- 2